Mzia Kutivadze

• How many of them were sentenced to death? • All of them were sentenced to death besides Tina. Chikhladze, brothers Iveriels and Gega were sentenced to death, as for David Mikadze committed suicide in the plane and Tabidze was perished during shooting in the plane. • How much was sentenced to Tina? • Tina was sentenced to 18 years of imprisonment. • How long did she spend in prison? • She was in prison for 6 years. Then she was taken to colony. Everyone treated her with tolerance taking into consideration her condition. She herself is calm, quiet person and she was given solitary cell. As they knew that she was painting and she was given a box of paints, just to make her busy and thus to help her to balance her emotional situation. Tamar, her mother, did her best, even quarreled and had hysterics in colony just to make sure that good specialists would cure Tina if she had even toothache, because as we know they had terrible doctors in colony. Everyone knew that there mustn’t be any kind of problems for Tina in prison. Then it happened so that during this period national-liberation movement began to activate and 9th of April , 1989 took place. People came out with slogans and demanded to liberate Tina. Then Vazha Lortkipanidze, my husband’s class-mate and the head of the department of ideology in “CK” (Central Committee), called us and directed to school N 55. The wife of one of the killed boys in plane worked at this school and he advised us to ask her if she wouldn’t be against the liberation of Tina. But when she learned who I was, she got very angry and I left the room without asking anything. I was very sorry for her.

In summer of 1989, the government decided to liberate Tina as positive step from their side. Tina spent 6 years in colony. Of course it was great joy for everyone but at the same time we had no idea about the fate of the boys, whether they were shot or not. We got no official announcement about it. Natela did her best to get information but in vain. At the same time there were appeal procedures in Moscow. The part of the society considered that they should help these boys and they made a list of supporters, but it happened so, that many of them later refused to be in the list of supporters. We can do nothing, it happens so sometimes. After seven or eight years later Natela got announcement about the fact that Gega was shot. He was shot on the same year when the verdict was passed. But unfortunately, we had no information about it. • How do you think, why they hid this fact from you? • I think that they tried to avoid extra agiotage. As you know people were actively involved in national movements and they were struggling against communists’ regime on this purpose. So it would be extra headache for them. After this, it was in 1990s, someone got in touch with Natela and took her somewhere and showed her cemetery, where Gega was buried. But later they found out that it was mistake and tis cemetery belonged to brothers - Iverielebi. As for me, I had no interest or wish just to make any enquiry in this field any more. • Did Tina meet Gega when he was wounded? • No, unfortunately they just met each other during trial. Now it is not surprising.